The iX Symposium is an initiative of Montreal’s Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Every year, iX welcomes artists, designers, researchers, developers, producers and all those who are curious and passionate about immersive experiences ! The « Reality Race » is picking up speed with the growing successes of the VR platforms, the commitment of tech giants behind XR authoring and delivery workflows and the expansion of the fulldome network. They are accelerated by progress in sensory expansion, deep machine learning, immersive computing, and ubiquitous cloud technologies rapidly transforming the World as we have known it. « Reality » in every sense of the word, is gaining depth, growing in complexity, and expanding the time-space horizons.

iX path

VR, AR AND IMMERSIVE ARTWORKS

A journey of 39 immersive works in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality that offers a panorama of recent practices in art and immersion design.

special

17:30

OPENING COCKTAIL

Launching

19:00

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Nora Bateson (Stockholm) is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, as well as President and founder of the International Bateson Institute (Sweden). This research center aims at rethinking the fundamentals of science in the spirit of her father, anthropologist Gregory Bateson and her grandfather, geneticist William Bateson. Her work asks the question, “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?”

Eames Demetrios (Los Angeles) is the creator of Kcymaerxthaere, a parallel universe coexisting with our world. He is also the director of the Eames Office, which serves as the archives of legendary husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames, his grandparents. As the inventors of first multimedia installations, they also directed the groundbreaking documentary Power of tens, that takes us on an adventure in scales, to the outer edges of the universe, a topic of Demetrios’ exhibits.

Opening discussion by Nora Bateson (Stockholm) (an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, as well as President and founder of the International Bateson Institute) and Eames Demetrios (Los Angeles) (the creator of Kcymaerxthaere, a parallel universe coexisting with our world and the director of the Eames Office).

Performances & Creations

Future Room + MasterpieceVR

MasterpieceVR : Immersive collaborative performance in the Satosphere by drawing masters using MasterpieceVR.

Wednesday, 30.05.2018

Theme: Ambient intelligence

Morning Kickoff

9:30

Opening talk with Tamiko Thiel (Munich)

An internationally renowned artist, Tamiko Thiel's pioneering VRML-based artworks are in museum collections and are still shown 20 years later. She was lead product designer for the Connection Machine, D.Hillis' AIsupercomputer, now in the collection of MoMA. To open the day, she will draw on this background to reflect on the theme of ambient intelligence. She will also present Gardens of the Anthropocene, an augmented reality installation imagining the near future of Montreal's biome.

Morning Kickoff

9:30

Opening talk with KENT BYE (SAN FRANCISCO)

Since May 2014,Kent Bye has traveled to the top VR gatherings around the world and conducted over 500 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering game developers, enthusiasts and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual reality. He's writing the "The Ultimate Potential of VR" book that distills the diverse thoughts and impressions of these leading visionaries, creators, and academics, and provides a holistic look at the future of virtual reality told by the people who are making it.

Interference + Créatures

Créatures : Audiovisual perormance with real time graphics and spatial sound in which the visuals and the sounds interact seamlessly, mutually driving each other by Vincent Houzé (New York) and Dave & Gabe (New York).

20:30

Noctambule + Nascent

Noctambule : Immersive work which opens up the doors of an unknown dimension and lets the imagination take over by Oilhack (Lyon), TSF (Lyon) et Marie-Michèle Beausoleil (Montreal).

Nascent : Collaborative work which aims at creating an immersive sonic experience while setting into play the relationship between hypercomposition, performance and spatialisation by Vergil Sharkya (Montreal) and Push 1 stop (Montreal).

Friday, 01.06.2018

Theme: Immersive experiences tools and processes

Morning Kickoff

9:30

Opening talk with Zach Lieberman (New York)

Zach Lieberman is a very prolific artist, researcher and hacker. He developed openFrameworks, a C++ library for creative coding, he is also working on the groundbreaking EyeWriter project, a toolkit that helps people with paraplegia to draw with their eyes. He’ll open the thematic about "Immersive experience tools and processes".